My research is focused on the interface between cosmology and fundamental physics. My main objective is to better understand what happened during the first instants of the universe, and its connection with high energy physics models and potential observational signatures. I am also a main developer of CosmoLattice, a code for lattice simulations of non-linear field dynamics in an expanding universe.
Career summary:
I graduated in Physics at the U. of Valencia (2008 – 2012), spending one year at Imperial College London with an Erasmus grant (2011 - 2012). Later, I enrolled in the MSc in Advanced Physics at the U. Valencia (2012 – 2013). I carried out my PhD studies at the Institute of Theoretical Physics UAM/CSIC with support from a Severo Ochoa PhD fellowship (02/2014 – 09/18). During my PhD I did several long-term visits to other research institutions, funded by the short stays program of the Spanish government: CERN (04/15 – 08/15), Imperial College London (04/16 – 07/16), and EPFL Lausanne (09/17 – 12/17).
After my PhD, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the particle physics and cosmology group of the University of Basel, led by Stefan Antusch (10/18 – 09/22). During the period 10/20-06/21, my research was directly supported by a competitive fellowship from the “Research Funds for excellent junior researchers” of Basel U. Since 10/22 I am a “Maria Zambrano” postdoctoral fellow at U. Valencia and IFIC.
Research:
My research lies on the interplay between cosmology and particle physics. My main objective is to improve our knowledge of the early universe and connect it to particle physics models and potential observational signatures. As of November 2022, I have published 16 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as PLB, PRD, JCAP and CPC. You can find a full updated list of my publications at my Inspire-HEP profile. I have a wide expertise with numerical simulations of the early universe. I am one of the main developers of CosmoLattice, a parallelized code for lattice simulations of classical scalar-gauge field theories in an expanding universe, publicly available at www.cosmolattice.net. I am also a co-author of “The art of simulating the early Universe”, a comprehensive dissertation that constitutes a pedagogical introduction to the field of lattice simulations (JCAP’20). The code is currently being used by several international research groups. The in-person CosmoLattice School was organized at Valencia (Spain) in September 2022, with more than 50 participants from 12 different countries.
Other relevant contributions also include: a characterization of the post-inflationary reheating history and its impact on CMB constraints (PLB’20, PRD’22, JCAP’22), lattice studies of non-equilibrium phenomena such as preheating or oscillons (JCAP’17, JCAP’19), lattice studies of the dynamics and implications of the Standard Model Higgs after inflation (PRD’15, PRD’18), parametric studies of gravitational waves from primordial sources (PRD’16, JCAP’17), and the formulation of an adiabatic regularization method for free and interacting fermions fields in an expanding universe (PRD’13, PRD’14, PRD’17).
My research output also includes several talks at international scientific conferences and seminars at different research institutions. Moreover, I have been a referee in the international scientific journals: PRL, PRD, JCAP, JHEP, MPLA, IJMPD and GREG.
Teaching:
During my career, I have been a lecturer at all institutions that have employed me (UAM Madrid, U. Basel and U. Valencia). Some of the official undergraduate courses I have given are: Astrophysics and Cosmology, Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, and Calculus. Moreover, I have been a lecturer of “Theoretical Cosmology”, an official MSc course at the U. of Basel that I have prepared and given twice (Winter 2019 and Spring 2021 semesters).
I am also significantly involved in the mentoring and supervision of postgraduate students. I am the day-to-day supervisor of PhD candidate Kenneth Marschall (02/19 – 01/23; thesis officially supervised by Stefan Antusch). I have also supervised three master theses. I have also been a lecturer at the PhD schools: ‘YETI 2022: Phenomenology in the Sky’ (Durham U., UK), and CosmoLattice school 2022 (Valencia U, Spain).